Release of Reality
by ChocolateChip-Master
Summary: Pidge was always an expert at hiding things. Good thing Matt's her brother and can confront her about it when he needs to...mostly. / Part 16 of my BTHB


**For the 'passing out from pain' square on my bingo card!**

**Anon requested: What if katie passed out from pain from wound she was hiding/didn't know she had in front of the other paladins? What about her brother? Would he think something's not right-or even catch her.**

**I particularly liked the Matt section of this ask, so hopefully this is in-line with expectations.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Pidge was limping.

Matt noticed it as soon as she stepped out of the Green Lion to greet him, all-smiles and obvious limp. She wore her Paladin armor so he couldn't see if her injury was bleeding, but she brushed off his concern with a laugh and practically demanded him to show her the new rebel tech he'd been bragging about over their nightly video chats.

For Matt, this simply wouldn't do.

He did as she asked, but pestered her about it the entire way. She brushed it off with a laugh and told him it didn't even hurt. But by the expression she made whenever he even slightly looked the other way told a different story.

_Damn it, Pidge._

Matt led her into his lab and she spent a full five minutes marveling at the technology. While Matt knew it was nothing compared to Altean tech, the stuff he had was still pretty damn impressive if he did say so himself. Everything was color-coded and hand-built by him. He'd worked hard on this place and he was proud of it.

"Wow," Pidge laughed. "You built _all _this?"

"Yup," Matt grinned, sticking his hands in his pockets. "You wouldn't believe how useful my engineering skills from the Garrison are out here."

Pidge staggered over to the nearest machine, investigating it. Matt's gaze darted to her leg. Had she just come from a Voltron battle? It would make sense, given how dangerous of a job it was. Matt didn't necessarily disapprove of what she did, (because what older brother who had a little sister that was one of the Defenders of the god damn Universe would _ever _stop her from doing that?) but he didn't like how constantly Pidge was in the line of fire. Every day he ran the risk of her not picking up her comm after all was said and done. That fact never sat well with him.

"Pidge-" he spoke, intending to confront her about her wound, but when Pidge peeked around his machine with her amber eyes sparkling behind his glasses and Matt couldn't find it in himself to bring it up anymore.

"What does it do?"

Matt smiled, but it felt forced, even to him. "Remember those 3D Printers back on Earth?"

"Yeah?"

"This is basically it," Matt explained. "But it prints out weapons."

Pidge's jaw near hit the floor. "_W__eapons? _Matt, you're 3D printing _weapons_ for the resistance?"

"Not just any weapons," Matt tapped her nose with his finger. "_Galra _weapons."

"No way."

"Yes way," Matt said, ignoring the way Pidge's nose crinkled. No one had said 'yes way' to anything in years. "They're super useful for infiltration missions and junk. But it's not a miracle printer, unfortunately. I can't just snap a picture of a Galra blaster and it'll print one out no problem, I gotta have an actual like _physical _blaster."

Pidge tilted her head. "Oh, we can get one for you no problem. Earlier today Lance took one from a sentry after it...well, nevermind." She smiled and Matt narrowed his eyes. She was about to let something slip, something about her injury. But Pidge _was _always the type to downplay an injury, as dramatic as she could get when something was really bothering her.

But if she wasn't going to talk then fine. Matt would get the answer out of her another way.

"No worries, we've got some of our own," he said. "The resistance isn't _entirely _useless, you know."

Pidge snorted. "If anything, you guys are far from it."

"Damn right we are," Matt said proudly. "We can get blasters just fine. The only issue is that we don't have _enough. _My printer, even though it works, kind-of totally fries the inside of the original blaster. Can't figure out why." He turned a conspiratorial grin to Pidge. "Wanna help me crack the code?"

Pidge's whole expression lit up like Christmas came early. "Oh _God _yes."

Matt picked up his toolkit from his workbench and made his way back to Pidge. She beamed when she saw him, but Matt didn't miss the way she was holding her calf like she was in a considerable amount of pain. He frowned at her, deciding to press just a bit.

"Pidge? You okay?"

"Yup!" She popped the 'p' and sprang to her feet. Her leg buckled underneath her and she hissed. "Just...uh...an accident on the mission today. It's no big deal."

Matt had half a mind to tell her it _was _a big deal, but if he continued to press, Pidge would get angry and give him a first class ticket to Silent Treatment Town. Matt really didn't want to try to communicate through looks while they were working on something so important, so he kept his mouth shut. He'd just have to catch Pidge off guard and confront her when she least expected it.

They worked in relative silence, aside from the few exchanges of tech nonsense and the metallic clanging of the tools picking apart the printer. The entire time, Matt kept a careful eye on Pidge and her movements. He hardly missed the way she kept her weight off her bad leg and how she swayed sometimes, blinking furiously. Matt was very afraid she'd been shot and had decided it wasn't severe enough to get checked out before she came to visit. He thought up at least a hundred ways to ask her about the mission, but he shot every single one of them down before they could even leave his lips.

Evidently, it seemed, he should have asked sooner.

Pidge's eyelids fluttered and she crumpled. Matt lunged forward, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her toward him before she could hit the floor. Her face was pale, breathing shallow and quick. Matt swore under his breath.

He sprinted for the communicator he'd left on his shelf and immediately pinged for Voltron. He could only hope they picked up. In the meantime, Matt fumbled for Pidge's calf, turning it over gently. His heart skipped a beat. He'd been right - there was a tiny bullet-shaped hole in the unprotected side of her armor. Pidge had stuffed it with a white cloth to try and stem the flow of blood.

Matt's hands flew as he listened to the quiet trill of the communicator reaching out for Pidge's teammates. He pulled off the heavy armor and tossed it aside. It hit one of his machines but he couldn't bring himself to care much.

The communicator pinged.

"Hello?"

A familiar alien princess with cloud hair and pink markings appeared on the holographic image. It was distorted with static but was absolutely Allura. Matt could make out Lance and Keith engaged in what looked like a furious game of space chess behind her.

"Princess Allura-" he gasped. He couldn't mask the panic in his voice as he turned back to Pidge. He rolled her carefully onto her stomach, taking out his pocket knife from his father and starting to cut away the thick rubber of the flight suit. "I-God, _Pidge."_

Allura's voice lost all friendliness. "Pidge? What's wrong with her?"

"She's shot, I think?" Matt narrowed his eyes. The panic was making it hard to think. "She just…_collapsed _in front of me."

"She..._ what?"_

"I don't know, you tell me!" Matt couldn't help himself from snapping. "You guys were on a mission before she came to get me, was she shot then?"

Allura echoed the question to Lance and Keith behind her. Keith blinked in confusion (having not _been _on that mission) while Lance stiffened.

"So she..._ what the fuck?!" _Lance stood up, nearly flipping over the chessboard. Keith yelped. "She told me that the bullet didn't hit her!"

Matt swallowed to wet his dry throat, but it only worsened it. He could hear his bloodstream in his ears. "Well, it clearly _did. _Maybe she thought it didn't at the time?"

Lance scowled. "Doesn't matter. I'll take Blue and we'll all be there in like ten minutes tops."

"No, we're taking Red, she's faster," Keith countered. He stood up, chess game forgotten. "How long has Pidge been out for?"

"Four, five minutes?" Matt guessed. "However long it's been, it's too long. So hurry over here and get her in your magic healing pod things!"

"We are on our way," Allura promised and the connection was cut.

Matt finally ripped away the last of the thick material of the flight suit with his pants and gagged. There was a circular hole in the back of Pidge's calf, barely larger than the pad of his thumb. The membrane around it was swollen and puffy, dried blood staining the entirety of the back of her leg. A fresh trickle oozed out of the hole. Matt thought he might be sick.

He worked fast, knowing the bullet had to come out and the bandages had to go on before Pidge bled out. He took a pair of tweezers he'd been using to keep his scruff in check and knelt next to Pidge. His heart pounded in his ears. He'd never taken a bullet out before. This could either go horribly, horribly wrong or it could all work out okay. A fifty-fifty chance.

Matt was not a betting man, but he did not like those odds.

"Okay," Matt steeled himself for the incoming operation. He could only hope Pidge remained unconscious for the duration of what he was about to do. He couldn't leave the bullet in there, that would basically be like signing Pidge's death warrant right there. But he had to be careful. Delicate. Hopefully, he didn't pull out a muscle or a bone out with the bullet. "Okay, let's do this."

Clicking the tweezers together once, Matt lowered them to the hole. He tried not to think about how he was suddenly fishing around in his little sister's skin for a _god damn_ _space bullet._

The tweezers clunked against something hard and Matt held his breath as Pidge whined in her sleep underneath him. Without hesitating, he seized the bullet with the tweezers and pulled. With a half-squelch half-_ plop _noise, the bullet came out. Matt dropped the bloody tweezers and the dented bullet on the ground. Then, he turned to the right and promptly threw up.

He supported himself weakly on his arms, trembling. _God, _what had just happened? Had he really done that?

Matt risked another glance at the tweezers and threw up again.

This wasn't supposed to happen. He and Pidge were supposed to have the time of their lives trying to figure out what went wrong with Matt's printer. He was not supposed to be fishing for bullets in her calf.

Matt raised himself onto his knees, putting his head into his hands. He tried to stop the light-headedness before it came but the world ended up spinning anyway. He swallowed down the vertigo as best he could and rose on unsteady legs.

_Bandages, _he reminded himself.

He always kept a first-aid kit in his lab in case of emergencies. There were all sorts of possible mishaps when it came to building machines and while Matt had never had to use it himself, he never would have imagined he'd be breaking in the kit by wrapping bandages around his little sister's leg.

After locating the first aid kit collecting dust in one of his workbench drawers, Matt made his way back to Pidge. He still felt woozy but managed to swallow it away for Pidge's sake. He wrapped the bandages around the wound, tightening them to prevent any further blood loss and leaned back against the table. He blinked back desperate tears, his chest heaving.

"I did it," he said, ignoring the bloody bullet and tweezers sitting on the ground next to Pidge's unconscious form. "I did it."

Now, all that was left was to wait.

* * *

**The team arrived five minutes later as promised. Pidge was put into a pod and was scolded endlessly by Matt, Lance, and Shiro when she got out until she finally got tired of it and told them to stop. **

**Gaah, this took so long to write! I kept erasing and rewriting so much of it, I was actually considering rewriting the whole thing several times, but I think I'm okay with this outcome. I hope the wonderful person who requested it is okay with this too! It's not exactly what they wanted, but it was fun to write. **

**I absolutely adore Matt as he's one of my favorite characters in the VLD universe. This may or may not be because I have a character named Matthew and I love him too. :p **

**Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed reading!**


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